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\chapter{Conclusion: the rebirth of `social physics?'} % top level followed by section, subsection





\begin{quotes}
'It is generally in these ill demarcated domains, that the urgent problem lies'\\
\attrib{{Marcel Mauss} \citeyearpar{mauss1973}   }
\end{quotes}


\begin{quotes}
No one descends with such fury and in so great a number as a pack of hungry physicists, adrenalized by the scent of a new problem. \\
\attrib{{Duncan Watts} \citeyearpar[p 62]{watts2004a}   }

\end{quotes}

\begin{quotes}
The idea that science and philosophy are different disciplines meant to complement each other \ldots arouses the desire and also imposes on us the duty to proceed to a confrontation. \\
\attrib{{Henry Bergson} \citep[in the context of a debate with Albert Einstein, quoted in][p 183]{canales2010}   }
\end{quotes}

%\begin{quotes}
%Adso: `But how does it happen,' I said with
%admiration, `that you were able to solve
%the mystery of the library looking at it
%from the outside, and you were unable
%to solve it when you were inside?' \\
%William of Baskerville: `Thus God knows the world, because He conceived it in His mind, as if from the
%outside, before it was created, and we do
%not know its rule, because we live inside
%it, having found it already made.'\\
%\attrib{{Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose} \citeyearpar{eco1983}   }
%
%\end{quotes}
%\begin{quotes}
%All evil qualities - oppression, hatred, envy, greed, mercilessness, pride - when they are within yourself, they bring no pain. When you see them in another, then you shy away and feel the pain. We feel no disgust at our own scab and abscess. We will dip our infected hand into our food and lick our fingers without turning in the least bit squeamish. But if we see a tiny abscess or half a scratch on another’s hand, we shy away from that person’s food and have no stomach for it whatsoever. \\
%Evil qualities are just like scabs and abscesses; when they are within us they cause no pain, but when we see them even to a small degree in another, then we feel pain and disgust. \\
%\attrib{{Jal\={a}l ad-D\={i}n Muhammad R\={u}m\={i} (1207 - 1273)} \citeyearpar{rumi1995}   }
%\end{quotes}
%

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\section{Introduction}


%It is fairly accepted today that the collection and organization of data about society is not innocent and value free, but a laborious exercise guided by the received wisdom of its time, a practice whose fruits feed back into an attempt to understand our-selves and the environment in which we live. This argument has been made forcefully by Ian Hacking with respect to the ‘deluge’ of demographic data at the turn of the twentieth century, data that chimed with new ‘styles of reasoning’ with respect to the ‘structural make-up’ of society. Clearly, the “avalanche of printed numbers” (Hacking 1990) that has led Quetelet, Marx and Durkheim to shape the human sciences is very different from the avalanche of communication data studied by contemporary researchers. Tracing the process by which contemporary communication data is transformed into knowledge about society, this paper proceeds in two stages: first, it identifies unique features of communication datasets, focusing especially on the process by which they are generated and the manner by which they are imprinted with certain social ‘truths’. Second, the paper suggests implications of these novel features on the development of the field of social networks; evaluating to what extent might these recent developments have as significant , managerial and political impact in the twenty-first century as did the ‘birth of structuralism’ and its associated ways of thinking and acting in the twentieth century.



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